Robots and Cupcakes
by SkywardShadow
Summary: When Shisui first met Itachi, he was pretty sure the kid ran on batteries. *ItaShi; Oneshot*


Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**A/N: If some bits here sound familiar…please ignore them. xD;;**

**Robots and Cupcakes**

**..**

They're cousins now, apparently, and neither one is particularly impressed.

Itachi, even at the tender age of four, can tell that his new aunt's son is going to be trouble. This could be partly due to the fact that Itachi noticed him sneaking swipes of frosting from the cake earlier in what the older boy seemed to think was an inconspicuous way. Or the fact that he tried to get Itachi to join him. The deciding factor was probably when, upon being studiously ignored by Itachi, Shisui saw fit to run over to where he was sitting and shove a handful of wedding cake in his face.

Now-Uchiha Shisui, six years old, is convinced that his younger cousin is a robot, perhaps an ANBU experiment of some kind. No _normal_ four-year-old would sit perfectly still throughout the long wedding ceremony, completely sans any fidgeting or bored noises. No _normal_ four-year-old would turn down a shot at free sugar. And no normal four-year-old has hair like that, either. No _boy_, at least. Only girls keep their hair in long, immaculate ponytails like Itachi's. So either the kid is secretly a girl, Shisui concludes, or a robot (in which case the ponytail is probably some sort of self-destruct lever; Shisui makes a mental note to test that theory sometime).

It's during the resulting clean-up session, while a dispassionate Itachi and scolded Shisui are trying to get icing out of the younger boy's eyelashes without poking out the eyes themselves, when Shisui decides to let bygones be bygones due to the fact that Itachi is the only one near his age that he's seen, and therefore his best potential friend material.

"Why don't you like cake? That's weird," he states in what seems to him like a very gracious way.

Itachi blinks. "I prefer dango," he replies in far too polite a tone for any child. Shisui frowns. The robot theory is starting to look more and more likely. But then again…

Shisui scoops a finger full of frosting off of Itachi's shirt and proceeds to stick the finger into the boy's mouth.

Itachi stares up at his new relative with surprised black eyes. Shisui carefully withdraws his finger, grateful that Itachi doesn't seem to be the biting type, and grins with satisfaction as his cousin swallows.

"Robots can't eat cake," he announces decisively, offering his hand.

"I don't…understand."

"Doesn't matter. You don't run on batteries, so you can be my friend now."

"…"

After a few seconds it becomes clear that Shisui is going to have to be the proactive one in this friendship. He sighs, reaches over, grabs Itachi's little hand and shakes it forcefully.

"_There_. Now we're friends."

And Itachi sort of smiles.

Sort of.

..

Itachi is thirteen now, and Shisui newly fifteen, and they are just as opposite as they have always been. Itachi has become a full-fledged master of keeping his emotions hidden; hailed as a prodigy, he has recently achieved the rank of ANBU captaincy. Shisui has been a member of the Police Force for over a year, has worked hard for a high rank within said force, and still wears his heart cheerily on his sleeve.

Both, in their own ways, tend to leap without looking. And both, thanks to a bond that-to the shock of plenty-has only strengthened over the years, are almost always there to catch each other. Or push each other over; if the fall isn't too great, of course.

"You know you're a stud, right?" Shisui asks casually during one of their walks.

Itachi blinks a few times in succession, something he's picked up a habit of doing whenever his cousin is doing/saying something particularly bizarre.

"…I can say with certainty that I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Oh, come on," Shisui protests, rolling his eyes. "You can't tell me you've never noticed your little fanclub. The girls are falling over you left, right and center-a couple guys too, now that I think about it-"

"Shisui," Itachi interrupts, "I fail to see how this is in any way relevant."

"It just pisses me off that all that attention is wasted on somebody who obviously couldn't care less!" Shisui's expression completely undermines his professed anger; it couldn't be clearer that he simply enjoys rattling his friend. "I guess I can see what they're on about. I mean, you've got the whole 'cool genius' thing going on, _and_ you're the girly-man type that women love so inexplicably much."

The blinking has stopped; possibly because all of Itachi's spare energy is going towards the Must Keep Eye From Twitching Madly Fund.

"Sometimes I truly wonder whether you have taken too many blows to the head."

Shisui adopts a mock-offended tone. "I am cut to the quick, little cousin."

"…Do not call me that."

"Why not? It's true."

"I am half an inch shorter than you are."

"Yes. _Half an inch_," Shisui emphasizes, grinning. "That means I still have license to torment you about your height."

"Very well," Itachi replies smoothly. "However, you would do well to remember that I am growing at an average of four inches per year."

"Meaning, O Walking Encyclopedia?"

"Meaning that as we are currently in autumn, I should overtake you in terms of height by the end of the year. And from that point on, I would be the one with your supposed 'license'." Itachi raises a slim eyebrow. "I believe you intelligent enough to take the hint."

Shisui considers, and does indeed decide to take the hint for the moment.

"So, it's my Ma's anniversary today," he remarks. "To your uncle, I mean."

Itachi nods. "Please give her my regards."

"You are _hopeless_," Shisui groans, rolling his eyes. "No matter what I do, you still sound like a stuffy old man in a teenager's body. At your age, you should be doing…normal teenager-y things!"

"Such as…?" Itachi prompts, raising an eyebrow.

"Like…like…" Shisui flails his arms as if in horror that such a thing even needs explaining. "Getting into trouble! Defacing the Hokage monument! Committing harmless acts of illegality! Checking out girls! Checking out _boys_!"

Itachi's other eyebrow goes up to join the first at that last exclamation.

"Anyway," Shisui sighs, calming down. "My Ma's anniversary. Know what that means?"

"Besides the obvious?"

"Duh, genius."

"Nothing immediately comes to mind."

"_Ouch_." The older of the two winces. "That hurts. And here I even brought a dessert to celebrate the occasion."

And he produces a fat cupcake, topped with copious amounts of white frosting that Itachi vaguely recalls having stuck in his eyelashes once. The memory makes him blink.

"…Oh."

"Knew that'd jog your memory," Shisui says cheerfully. "Happy anniversary-of-the-day-we-met, Itachi. And before you say anything, yes, I am well aware that I'm a massive cornball."

Itachi opens his mouth to point out that he wasn't going to say anything, and abruptly finds himself with a mouthful of fluffy frosting as well as Shisui's finger.

"Your eyes just got really wide, you know that?" Shisui grins his usual carefree grin, but the tips of his ears are quickly going red. As if he just realized that they aren't small children anymore.

He pulls the finger out quickly, scraping his skin on Itachi's teeth, and rubs the back of his neck with obvious embarrassment.

"Uh…sorry about that. Nostalgia, you know. Go on, um, dig in!"

Itachi stares at him for a few seconds, and then swallows slowly.

"It…tastes better than I remembered," he observes in a quiet tone. "It's...good, actually."

Neither of them are quite sure how what happens next actually happens (Shisui doesn't know if he can claim to be the proactive one anymore or not); one moment Shisui's grin has brightened by several watts, and the next their lips are pressed together and their eyes are closed and…_this_ is definitely a "normal teenager-y thing".

"Yeah, you're right," Shisui murmurs after they pull apart. "It is pretty good."

"Mm."

"And…Itachi?"

"Yes?"

"You're definitely not a robot."

**End**


End file.
